More by Oscar Gonzales

What remains of my childhoodare the fragmentary visionsof large patiosextendinglike an oceanic green mist over the afternoon.

Then, crickets would forge in the windtheir deep music of centuriesand the purple fragrances of Grandmotheralways would receive without questionsour return home.

The hammock shivering in the breezelike the trembling voice of light at dusk,the unforeseeable futurethat would never exist without Mother,the Tall tales that filledwith their most engaging lunar weight our days—all those unchangeable things—were the morning constellationsthat we would recognize daily without sadness.

In the tropical days we had no intuition of the winternor of autumn, that often returns with painin the shadows of this new territory—like the cold moving through our shivering hands—that I have learned to acceptin the same way you welcomethe uncertainty of a false and cordial smile.

Those were the days of the solsticewhen the wind pushed the smoke from the clay ovensthrough the zinc kitchensand the ancient stone stovesclearly spokeof the secrets of our barefooted and wise Indian ancestors.